Tuesday, March 29, 2016

As one of the primary laws of physics states, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. And with Canada earlier this month dumping their remaining sovereign gold holdings onto the open market, one country has not only increased their buying of the monetary metal, but has now jumped to the number one spot in global purchases.

And that country is Russia.

The Central Bank of Russia bought 356,000 ounces of gold in
February becoming the largest buyer of the precious metal among the world's
central banks, business daily Vedomosti reports, quoting the IMF data.

Last week, Russian foreign reserves increased by another
$5.8 billion to $386.9 billion. The international reserves consist of foreign
exchange, special drawing rights (SDR) holdings, the reserve position in the
IMF and monetary gold.

In June 2015, the First Deputy Governor of the Central Bank
Dmitry Tulin said the regulator intends to increase Russia's international
reserves to $500 billion within three to five years.

The Central Bank had previously been spending the reserves
to prop up the ruble. In November 2014 the regulator switched to a floating
exchange rate and started increasing the reserves which reached $510.5 billion
in early 2015.

The IMF has not yet included China in its
February statistics; however the People's Bank of China reported it had bought
about 320,000 ounces of gold that month. - Russia Today